The Police Response to Active Shooter Incidents...2014, and Chief Cathy Lanier of Washington,...

CRITICAL ISSUES IN POLICING SERIES

The Police Response to Active Shooter Incidents

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CRITICAL ISSUES IN POLICING SERIES

The Police Response to Active Shooter Incidents

March 2014

This publication was supported by the Motorola Solutions Foundation. The points of view expressed herein are the authors’ and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Motorola Solutions Foundation or individual Police Executive Research Forum members.

Police Executive Research Forum, Washington, D.C. 20036Copyright 2014 by Police Executive Research Forum

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-934485-23-1

Cover and text page design by Dave Williams.

Photos by James McGinty.

Contents

Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................i

Introduction .......................................................................................... 1

Analysis of 84 Active Shooter Incidents Since 2000 ............................. 3

Variations Found in Policies on Active Shooter Response ................... 8Sidebar: Characteristics of Active Shooters ..........................................................................9

The Police Response to Active Shooter Incidents, and Changes in Officer Training ......................................................... 16Sidebar: January 2014 Shooting in Maryland Shopping Mall Tested Capabilities of Howard County Police ....................................................................18Sidebar: Police and Fire Departments in Arlington County, VA Create Rescue Task Forces to Speed Medical Care .............................................................22Sidebar: Shooting at the Washington Navy Yard— D.C. Metropolitan Police Department: Identified Issues and Challenges .........................24Sidebar: Takeaways and Suggestions ..................................................................................28

Preventing the Next Active Shooter Incident ..................................... 29

What Police Should Tell the Community ........................................... 37

Conclusion ........................................................................................... 40

Resources ................................................................................................................... 41

About the Police Executive Research Forum ........................................................ 43

About Motorola Solutions and the Motorola Solutions Foundation ................. 45

Appendix: Participants at the PERF Summit— “The Police Response to Active Shooter Incidents” ............................................. 46

Acknowledgments — i

Acknowledgments

In the summer of 2012, following the mass shooting event at the Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, PERF decided to conduct a “Critical Issues in Policing” project on the topic of active shooters.

During the fall months, PERF was conduct-ing research and preparing for a national Summit where police chiefs and others would discuss the changes in policies, training, and strategies that have resulted from the onset of active-shooter incidents.

Then, on December 14, the nation got word of a new active shooting incident, in Newtown, Con-necticut, which was one of the most horrific of all of these heinous crimes, because most of the vic-tims were very young children. We held our Sum-mit in February 2013, and the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown was fresh in everyone’s minds, as we discussed the approaches to these incidents that are detailed in this report.

PERF is grateful to the Motorola Solutions Foundation for its generous support of the Critical Issues in Policing series. Once again, our colleagues at Motorola have provided PERF with the flexibility to take on the most difficult issues in policing as the issues emerge. PERF’s partnership with the Motor-ola Solutions Foundation has resulted in many of PERF’s most significant projects in the areas of research and policy development.

Specifically, I want to thank Greg Brown, Chair-man and CEO of Motorola Solutions; Mark Moon, Executive Vice President and President, Sales and Product Operations; Jim Welch, Senior Vice Presi-dent, Americas Region; Domingo Herraiz, Vice President, North America Government Affairs; and Matt Blakely, Director of the Motorola Solutions Foundation. Our friend Rick Neal, recently retired from Motorola Solutions, played a key role in get-ting this project off the ground.

I also want to thank all of the PERF members and other experts who participated in our Active Shooter Summit on February 13, 2013. Special thanks go to the police chiefs who have experienced active shooter incidents, including Aurora Chief Dan Oates, Colonel Danny Stebbins of the Connect-icut Department of Public Safety, the lead agency investigating the Sandy Hook mass shooting, How-ard County, MD Chief William McMahon, who led the response to a shopping mall shooting in January 2014, and Chief Cathy Lanier of Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, which responded to the Washington Navy Yard mass shooting inci-dent in September 2013.

Chief Terry Gainer, U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Kim Dine, and my former Executive Assistant Tam Vieth, who is now with Customs and Border Protection, deserve spe-cial thanks. They arranged for our Summit to be held in the historic “Senate Caucus Room” in the Russell Senate Office Building. (This room, pictured on the cover of this report, has served as the site of some of the most dramatic Senate hearings for more than 100 years, including hearings on the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the Teapot Dome Scandal in 1923, the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, and the Watergate investigation in 1973.)

We are also grateful to Prof. Pete Blair of Texas State University, who made two important presen-tations at our Summit. In the first, he shared the results of groundbreaking research that he and his colleagues have conducted on 84 active shooting incidents between 2000 and 2010. Professor Blair’s research is especially informative because it was conducted from a law enforcement perspective. And in his second presentation, Professor Blair dis-cussed how police can educate the public about how to protect themselves if they are ever present at an

ii — Acknowledgments

active shooter situation.And thanks to PERF members who provided us

with copies of their active shooter policies, training protocols, videos, PowerPoints, and other informa-tion. These documents provided important per-spectives on the actual practices of police agencies, in an area that has been changing since the Colum-bine shooting of 1999 and is continuing to evolve with each new mass shooting incident.

Finally, I want to thank the PERF staff members who worked on this project, starting with my Chief of Staff, Andrea Luna, and PERF’s former Direc-tor of Program Development, Sheryl Goldstein. Andrea has been leading Motorola Solutions Foun-dation projects for many years, and Sheryl provided strong support on this one, along with Deputy Chief of Staff Shannon Branly. Sunny Schnitzer, Balinda

Cockrell, Jacob Berman, Chris Coghill, and Rachel Freeland conducted background research and gath-ered information from PERF chiefs, and helped to organize the PERF Summit. Kit Lau and Jennifer Brooks also provided logistical support. Commu-nications Director Craig Fischer wrote this report with assistance from Gregory Newman. Craig pulls together materials from many sources and writes one coherent and readable story. I am grateful for his insights and determination to make this pub-lication one of PERF’s most important and useful reports. James McGinty was our photographer, and PERF’s talented and meticulous graphic designer, Dave Williams, produced this document.

I hope you will find that this report provides useful information about this critically important topic in policing.

Executive DirectorPolice Executive Research ForumWashington, D.C.

Introduction — 1

In 1999, the United States was shocked when two students at Columbine High School in Colorado shot and killed 12 students and one teacher, injured 24 more, and then killed them-selves. The Columbine shooting was hardly the first major incident of violence in the United States, but for a number of reasons, Columbine was particu-larly distressing, and it captured the attention of the American people.

First, unlike other high-profile crimes with multiple victims, the Columbine massacre did not involve criminals whose motive was financial profit, terrorists trying to obtain the release of their imprisoned brethren, or political radicals or zealots. The Columbine shooters’ motivations were not the motives of “traditional” criminals.

Furthermore, the Columbine shootings shocked the nation because they hit close to home for people who were not accustomed to worrying about vio-lent crime. Columbine was an upper-middle-class suburban high school with a high graduation rate, and large majorities of Columbine graduates went on to college. Thus, unlike the case with many other types of crime, average Americans could not look at the Columbine shooting and dismiss it as some-thing that could never happen in their community.

Because the Columbine incident was something new, it prompted new thinking by police depart-ments about how they should respond. More than a decade later, this process of developing new police policies, practices, and training for “active shooter” events is continuing.

Introduction

“Columbine was a wake-up call.”—Montgomery County, MD Police Chief Thomas Manger

In the Columbine incident, police from vari-ous Denver-area agencies responded but did not enter the school to stop the shooters for more than 30 minutes. That reflected their training, which was based on the concepts of containing the situation and waiting for SWAT team members to arrive, mobilize, and respond.

This type of training reflected the thinking at the time. And it was appropriate for hostage inci-dents or other scenarios in which it made sense to wait for a SWAT team to respond, because SWAT

Montgomery County, MD Police Chief Thomas Manger

2 — Introduction

personnel are better equipped and trained in spe-cial tactics than are patrol officers. However, Col-umbine did not involve hostage takers; it involved two youths intent on quickly killing people at random. Columbine brought a realization by law enforcement leaders that a much faster response was needed for active-shooter incidents.

Columbine brought about a sea change in police tactics. “Contain and negotiate” may be appropriate for hostage incidents or situations where a person is barricaded in a room and unable to harm victims. But it is not appropriate for active shooter incidents. Columbine resulted in new approaches in which patrol officers are being trained to respond to active shooters as quickly as possible.

These new policies undoubtedly have saved many lives. Following is how the Associated Press described one of the most recent events, an attack at a supermarket in Elkhart, Indiana on Jan. 15, 2014:

A deadly shooting at an Indiana grocery store could have been much worse if not for the quick actions of two police officers who relied on training that has become commonplace since the 1999 Col-umbine shootings. Cody Skipper and Jason Tripp arrived at the Elkhart store within three minutes and needed less than 60 seconds to fatally shoot a gunman who had killed two people and was threat-ening a third.1

These new approaches to active shooter events have not been easy to implement, and difficult issues have arisen in connection with active-shooter protocols.

For example, a faster response is more dan-gerous to responding officers. Patrol officers who quickly move to confront an active shooter face a high likelihood of being shot themselves.

In addition, active shooter incidents are danger-ous, uncertain, and quickly changing. Specialized teams such as SWAT units receive complex tactical training in how to respond to dynamic situations with many moving parts. It is difficult to shrink this type of training to an abbreviated, short-course for-mat suitable for all line officers.

Thankfully, most officers will never need to use active shooter training. But it is important that they receive some training, because on the rare occasion when a patrol officer is one of the first to arrive at a mass shooting incident, the stakes could not be higher.

There have been many active shooter inci-dents in the United States since Columbine, and police agencies continue to modify their policies and training to reflect the lessons that are learned from each new tragedy. This report summarizes the state of the field as of 2014. The Police Executive Research Forum conducted research on these issues and held a one-day Summit in Washington, D.C., in which an overflow crowd of more than 225 police chiefs and other officials discussed the changes that have occurred, and where they are going from here.

1. “Response to store shooting confirms police tactics.” Associated Press, Jan. 17, 2014. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/response-store-shooting-confirms-police-tactics

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/response-store-shooting-confirms-police-tacticshttp://bigstory.ap.org/article/response-store-shooting-confirms-police-tactics

Analysis of 84 Active Shooter Incidents Since 2000 — 3

Analysis of 84 Active Shooter Incidents Since 2000

One of the first presentations at PERF’s Summit on Active Shooters was made by Prof. J. Pete Blair of Texas State University, who conducts train-ing on active shooter response and other topics at the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Train-ing Center (ALERRT) at Texas State University. He is one of the authors of the 2013 book, Active Shooter Events and Response.2

Professor Blair shared the results of a major research project that he conducted, in which he and his colleagues analyzed every major active shooter event they could identify from 2000 to 2010.

Solo Entry to an Active Shooting Event Is Dangerous

By Prof. J. Pete BlairTexas State University

The research I’m going to summarize now, which I conducted with M. Hunter Martaindale, was designed to help police learn from past active shooter events, so we can be better prepared for what’s going to come in the future.

We wanted to get the big picture. We focused on active shooter events since the year 2000. We chose the year 2000 because Columbine was in 1999, and that event brought the sea change in the way police respond to these events. And we decided to stop at

2. http://www.amazon.com/Active-Shooter-Events-Response-Blair/dp/1466512296

the year 2010, because when these events happen, it can take some time for the information that we were seeking to emerge from investigations and court proceedings.

Prof. J. Pete Blair, Texas State University

4 — Analysis of 84 Active Shooter Incidents Since 2000

WE ANALYZED 84 ACTIVE SHOOTER EVENTSWe identified 84 events in that 2000-2010 time frame. Our criteria for defining an active shooter event were that the event had to involve one or more persons killing or attempting to kill multiple peo-ple in an area or areas occupied by multiple unre-lated individuals. At least one of the victims had to be unrelated to the shooter. We excluded gang-related shootings because that’s a different kind of phenomenon.

Our sources of information about the 84 active shooter events were reports from the investigat-ing agencies, the Supplemental Homicide Reports (SHR) produced by the FBI, and news media stories.

If you look at the breakdown year to year, you’ll see the number of events starting at a relatively low level in the 2000s and then ramping up in 2009 and 2010. By the way, we are finding that 2011 and 2012 were much like 2009 and 2010; we have seen more of these events happening lately.

Next, I wanted to take a look at where these attacks occur. Since Sandy Hook, there has been a lot of attention on active shooters at schools, and schools are certainly important, accounting for 29 of the 84 incidents.

But I found that if you combine active shooter events at business locations—offices, factories, warehouses, and retail settings—the total of all of these events at business locations was more numer-ous, with 31 active shooting events.

“In all of the solo entries we identified where the scene was still hot, one-third of the police officers who made that solo entry were shot.”—Prof. J. Pete Blair

25

20

15

10

5

01

5 47

2

86

86

16

21

20002001

20022003

20042005

20062007

20082009

2010

Year

Frequency

Frequency of Active Shooter Incidents by Year

Source: Active Shooter Events and Response, CRC Press, 2013.

And 14 active shooter events occurred in out-door public areas.

It’s also noteworthy that 80 percent of the events happened at one location, but 20 percent of the attackers went mobile. Most of the time, that’s on foot—they walk out of the building they’re in, go to another building and continue the attack there.

HOW DID THE EVENTS END?Next, I considered how the active shooter events were resolved. We defined resolution as the shooter being shot or subdued or otherwise stopped, or the shooter stopping the shooting and leaving the location.

You can see from the diagram (see page 5) that in about half the events, the shooting stopped before police arrived at the scene. The shooter either committed suicide, or left the scene, or was shot or subdued by victims at the scene.

These events generally happened very quickly. The most common resolution, in the events that stop before the police arrive, is that the shooter commits suicide. What we tend to see is that the attackers have an initial burst of violence. They have so many victims in front of them; they attack those victims; they run out of victims; and they kill themselves.

That’s probably not very surprising for most of the police chiefs in this room. What may be a little bit surprising is the number of situations where the people on scene subdue or shoot the attacker them-selves. That’s what happened in nearly 40 percent of all the incidents that were resolved before the police arrived. I think that’s important for the discussion about civilian response, which I’ll discuss later (see page 37). And in about 10 percent of the events that stop before the police arrive, the attacker just leaves.


So what happens in the incidents that are still continuing when the police arrive? You see it’s roughly 50–50 as to whether the police shoot or use other force against the attacker, or the attacker stops the shooting by surrendering or committing suicide. The most common resolution in these cases is that the police stop the attacker, and the second most common result is that the attacker commits suicide.

SOLO ENTRY IS QUITE DANGEROUSHere is something important to consider. People talk about how the response to active shooters has changed since Columbine, and officers are encour-aged to do a “solo entry” if they are the first on the scene. And in some of the discussions I’ve heard, the rationale behind it seems to be, “Well, it’s really not that dangerous, because the attacker usually kills himself.”

So I wanted to take a look at it from our data and see if the situation really is clear when there’s

one officer going in by himself or herself. And the first thing I found is that in 57 percent of the cases where there’s single-officer entry, the scene is still active. There is still gunfire ringing out. The attacker is still killing people. That’s a higher number than what you see in the overall data, but it makes sense because the solo officer typically is getting to the scene faster than the cases where multiple officers arrive at once.

Here’s what happens if the scene is still active and an officer goes in. Sixty-two percent of the time, the officer shoots the attacker. Another 13 percent, the officer otherwise subdues the attacker. The remaining 25 percent of the time, the suspect kills himself.

So 75 percent of the time when the solo officer goes in and the scene is still hot, the officer is tak-ing direct action against the attacker.

And here’s an even more important statistic: In all of the solo entries we identified where the scene was still hot, one-third of the police officers who made that solo entry were shot.

Time

Pre-Police

CommitsSuicide

(21)

Leaves(4)

Shot(3)

Subdued(13)

AttackerStops(25)

Victims Stop Attacker

(16)

Event BeginsN=84

CommitsSuicide

(13)

Surrenders(6)

Shot(17)

Subdued(7)

AttackerStops(19)

Police Stop Attacker

(24)

Police Arrive(43)

Post-Police

Resolution of Active Shooter Events in the United States, 2000 –2010

Source: Active Shooter Events and Response, CRC Press, 2013.

6 — Analysis of 84 Active Shooter Incidents Since 2000

I’m not opposed to solo officer entry, but I think the officers ought to be informed explicitly about what the risks are, if they’re going to take that risk.

TYPES OF WEAPONS USED BY ACTIVE SHOOTERSI want to turn now and talk about how the attackers are equipped. Obviously that’s going to be important in deciding what equipment police need to bring. Most of the time—in 60 percent of the cases—the most powerful weapon they have is a pistol. But 27 percent of the time, they have a rifle, and 9 percent of the time, they have a shotgun. So we are seeing long firearms being used by these people as well as handguns.

And in 41 percent of the events where we were able to identify the weapons carried, the attacker carried multiple weapons.

The attackers wore body armor 4 percent of the time, so it’s not common but it does happen. And attackers brought improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in 2 percent of the incidents.

EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES RESPONSEAnother big issue is EMS response. The EMS national standard is that EMS workers will not enter scenes that are not secure. And that makes sense; they don’t want their own people to become victims.

But the problem we face in an active shooter sit-uation is that when one of these events happens, you get many people calling in, giving different descrip-tions of the shooter. So the police go in and stop the killing, and they call dispatch and say, “I’ve got a shooter down,” and they provide a description. But the description does not match all of the descrip-tions given by 911 callers, so you can’t be sure that there isn’t another shooter on the scene.

And so what happens? Police have to do a systematic search before they can say the scene is

secure. And even after the shooter is down, calls keep coming in with people saying, “I saw the shooter at this location” or “My buddy just called me and said he saw the shooter.” That kind of thing is very common during these events.

So you can imagine how long it may take to do a systematic search if you’re in a large office building or a shopping mall. It may take hours, and what’s happening during that time? People who have been shot and wounded are bleeding out and dying.3

So it falls upon our first responders who are inside the scene, the law enforcement officers, to provide immediate lifesaving care to people. That can mean stabilizing them long enough until the scene can be cleared and EMS can be brought in, it or can mean transporting people out of the scene to EMS.

And it can mean training police officers in triage and in applying immediate lifesaving tech-niques like tourniquets and occlusive dressings that help control bleeding. In my opinion, tourniquets should be standard issue with every police officer in their kit—not just for active shooter incidents, but for everyday emergencies. In San Antonio last year, we had a police officer who was handling a traffic stop when a drunk driver hit him, cutting off his leg. Another officer immediately applied a tourni-quet and saved the officer’s life.

OFFICERS MUST BE TRAINED TO EXPECT A FIGHTOfficers have to be ready to fight. They can’t go in with the assumption that “most of the time, these guys kill themselves, so I’ll probably be OK.” In many of these events, the attackers are looking to fight, and so our officers need to be ready to fight.

We have seen attackers barricade themselves in, so we need police to have the skills and techniques and equipment to get in and stop the killing.

Another thing to think about is whether you are ready to operate outdoors. Seventeen percent of these incidents we studied happened outdoors,

3. In Mass Attacks, New Advice Lets Medics Rush In. New York Times, December 7, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/ 12/08/us/in-mass-attacks-new-advice-lets-medics-rush-in.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/us/in-mass-attacks-new-advice-lets-medics-rush-in.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/us/in-mass-attacks-new-advice-lets-medics-rush-in.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0


and technique, formations, and other things must be done differently. Using indoor tactics outside can get you killed.

I work with a training organization at Texas State University called ALERRT—Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training. ALERRT has an Active Shooter Response program that since 2002 has trained more than 50,000 law enforcement professionals across the nation.

And the basic question we pose is, are you ready? Do your people have the tools and the training they need to respond to the types of threats I mentioned here?

Finally, in my opinion, police and the news media should do everything possible to avoid glam-orizing mass shooters. Many active shooters seem to be motivated by a desire for fame or recognition, so you will never hear me mention one of these people by name. It’s enough to refer to them as “the attacker” or “the shooter.”

Chuck Wexler: Professor Blair, that was very informative. Can you summarize your advice for situations when the first officer or officers arrive at the scene, and you don’t really know what’s happen-ing yet—do you rush in or not?

Professor Blair: Well, if you hear gunshots ringing out, we train our officers to go in. But we always say there has to be something driving you to go in, and the thing that drives you is that you have to have actual intelligence about what’s happening. You’re going into the building because you can hear gunshots coming from a certain area, and you’re going to move to that location to stop the violence. That is what we teach them to do.

Wexler: So you teach them when they arrive at an active shooter event to stop and listen?

Professor Blair: Yes, to get the intelligence and assess what’s going on. They need to stop for a sec-ond, take a pause, and figure out, “What’s happen-ing here? Where do I need to be? What’s the best thing for me to do at this point in time?” It’s not just jumping out of the car and running in with your guns out.

It only takes a few seconds. I’m not talking about sitting down there for five minutes trying to figure it out, but taking a few seconds to try to see what’s happening and decide where you’re going.

We teach them that any time you have more than one officer who can go in, that’s always prefer-able to a single-officer entry. But we also teach them not to handcuff officers and say, “No, you have to stand outside and wait” when they know that kids are being murdered in a school—because while you’re waiting, people are being killed.

And so there is that balancing act. There isn’t going to be a perfect solution. There’s not going to be a single one-size-fits-all policy. It’s going to come down to the officer on the scene being prop-erly trained and properly equipped, and taking a moment to make the decision and say, “This is what I think is appropriate in this situation,” and then being prepared to act.

Wexler: We have so many small police agen-cies in the United States, agencies with only 25 or 50 officers. Do those smaller agencies have a particular challenge with these kinds of incidents?

Professor Blair: Certainly they do. That’s one of the reasons we talk about solo officer entry. In a sparsely populated area there may be only one or two deputies on duty in a county that’s hundreds of square miles. It may take several minutes for that first deputy to arrive, and if he waits for backup, it could be a half-hour or more for them to get there. So yes, it’s definitely an issue because they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the manpower to show up.

Wexler: The EMS issue is another major con-cern. One of the things we noted in PERF’s research is that officers are trained not to deal with the injured but to go straight to the shooter. But psy-chologically, this can be difficult to do, to just run past severely injured people. Is that right?

Professor Blair: Yes, it’s a question of priorities. The first priority is to stop the killing. You have to stop the active shooter, so you do that before you go back and try to help the wounded.

8 — Variations Found in Policies on Active Shooter Response

Variations FoundIn Policies on Active Shooter Response

PERF obtained policies and general orders regarding active shooter events from dozens of police and sheriffs’ departments of various sizes.

In drafting their policies, some departments have incorporated certain elements from each oth-er’s policies, or from guidelines offered by state and national policing organizations. However, each pol-icy obtained by PERF appeared to be unique, and there were important differences on key points.

Following is a summary of the different approaches that police departments have taken to some of the key issues.

ACTIVE SHOOTER INCIDENTS ARE DIFFERENT FROM HOSTAGE SITUATIONS Many departments’ policies begin with a state-ment that active shooter incidents are fundamen-tally different from hostage situations or incidents involving threats by persons who have barricaded themselves in a building or protected area but are not actively harming anyone. The critical distinc-tion is that active shooters aim to inflict mass casu-alties as quickly as possible, usually in a matter of minutes. Many active shooters do not target any particular individuals, but rather try to kill as many people as possible.

Thus, active shooter policies grew out of a need for a much faster police response to these situations. “In active shooter cases, delayed deployment could have catastrophic consequences,” the Albany, NY Police Department’s policy states.

Furthermore, some policies state that the pur-pose of an active shooter policy is to reduce the inherent confusion that can occur when multiple agencies respond to a quickly changing, extremely violent event. Thus, a policy that is carefully tailored to active shooter events can result in a faster, better organized response that can save lives.

Many departments’ policies note that stopping the shooter must be an absolute top priority, and that rescuing or providing medical assistance to victims is a secondary priority to be addressed only after the shooter or shooters have been neutralized.

Many policies note that Active Shooter proto-cols should not be used as a response to “barricaded gunman” situations. And some policies note that active shooter incidents are dynamic, and that an incident may go in and out of active shooter status in ways that could alter the police response. For example, a situation may begin as an active shooter incident, but if the shooter barricades himself in a room where he no longer has access to potential victims, and the police can secure that room and contain the shooter, the police response should shift accordingly.

SOLO ENTRY AND “CONTACT TEAMS” In active shooter situations where an officer arrives at the scene and can hear shooting, screams, or other indications that the perpetrator is actively shooting or threatening victims, some departments’ policies explicitly provide that the lone officer can move to stop the threat without waiting for any additional

Variations Found in Policies on Active Shooter Response — 9

officers to arrive. The shooter may be stopped by arrest, by containment, or by use of deadly force.

And some policies note that when an active shooter incident occurs at a school, a School Resource Officer (SRO) may be the first officer at the scene who must make a decision about whether to respond alone.

Other departments require that officers wait until a certain number of officers have arrived. Those officers are instructed to form a “contact team” that responds as a unit with the mission of stopping the shooter and preventing his escape.

Some departments’ policies recommend a con-tact team of a certain size—often four officers—but also specify that fewer officers may respond if it is apparent that a full contact team cannot be assem-bled quickly. Some of these agencies caution that a smaller team should be deployed only as a last resort.

Some policies provide that only one contact team should be deployed, and that officers who arrive at the scene later may join that contact team. Other departments call for multiple contact teams to be deployed quickly as additional officers arrive

at the scene. If multiple teams are deployed, their movements and actions should be tracked and coor-dinated by a designated commander, to ensure that they don’t unknowingly cross paths with each other or spend time on redundant searches, for example.

Some departments do not offer specific guid-ance on how many officers should be at the scene before at least one officer moves to stop the shooter, saying only that those decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis, depending on circumstances.

Defining the role of contact teams: Many poli-cies note that as a contact team moves through the location, searching for the active shooter or shoot-ers, the team is “subject to 360-degree vulnerability,” because the shooter or shooters may be hiding any-where. Policies offer guidance on various types of formations the contact team can use to reduce that vulnerability, such as “Rolling T” or “Diamond” formations in which a point person determines the direction of the team, two “flankers” or “wings” cover threats to the left and right, and a rear guard faces backwards and makes radio transmissions.

A number of police and sheriffs’ departments’ policies list characteristics that are often associated with active shooters. The policies note that each incident is unique and that no list of active shooter characteristics is comprehensive. The characteristics cited in various policies include the following:

• Active shooters are likely to engage more than one target. They may target particular individuals or they may be intent on killing as many randomly chosen people as possible. Active shooters often go to locations with high concentrations of people, such as schools, theaters, shopping centers, or other places of business.

• Active shooters’ intention is usually an expression of hatred or rage, rather than financial gain or motives associated with

other types of crimes. Thus, police tactics of containment and negotiation may be an inadequate response to an active shooter.

• Active shooters often, but not always, are suicidal. Escape from the police is usually not a priority of an active shooter. Most active shooters have not attempted to hide their identity.

• Active shooters often have made detailed plans for the attack. Often they are better armed than the police. They usually have some familiarity with the chosen location. In some cases they have planned diversions or booby traps, such as explosives.

• In some situations, active shooters choose a location for tactical advantage, such as a high, protected location. In other incidents, active shooters have remained mobile.

Characteristics of Active Shooters


Many policies emphasize that members of con-tact teams must remember that their sole purpose is to stop the shooter. It can be difficult to maintain that focus as officers encounter injured victims, but the policies indicate that helping injured victims may have to wait until the shooter or shooters have been stopped.

Furthermore, some policies warn that victims often will be confused, in shock, paralyzed with fear, or unable to comprehend officers’ commands. Some victims may attempt to cling to officers, slow-ing their progress as they search for the shooter or shooters.

Again, some agencies’ policies note that if the active shooter event is at a school, it can be very helpful if a School Resource Officer is part of the contact team, because the SRO presumably will be familiar with the layout of the school building and other critical information. If multiple contact teams are active, the SRO might be more useful as a coor-dinator to guide the contact teams.

Some policies emphasize the importance of confronting the shooter as quickly as possible, in order to save lives. “DO NOT waste valuable time searching areas where you know there is no violence occurring,” a training bulletin from the Louisville, KY Metro Police Department states. “Go straight to the source of the violence. Use your senses to guide you to the location of the suspect. Go toward the activity you can see or hear. Go toward the sounds of violence. As you are passing potential witnesses, ask them for any information that might help you locate the shooter.”

Repeat radio transmissions: Many policies note that contact teams will encounter many dis-tractions, including injured victims, noise from fire alarms and school bells, and activated fire sprin-klers. Police leaders have noted that even expe-rienced officers can find it difficult to focus their attention in the midst of so many distractions. Thus, they say, radio transmissions to officers should be repeated multiple times, in case officers are unable to comprehend instructions or information the first time it is provided.

Many policies also note that officers must be aware of traps or other threats that the shooter may have set, such as explosive devices.

Off-duty officers: A number of policies note that plainclothes or off-duty officers who respond to an active shooter incident should remember that other responding officers may mistake them for a perpetrator. Ideally, police agencies should work together regionally to issue special apparel that can be recognized from a distance (such as brightly col-ored baseball caps or windbreakers), which plain-clothes and off-duty officers can keep handy in case they respond to an unexpected event, so officers can recognize other officers at a glance.

And plainclothes and off-duty officers at an active shooting incident should immediately hol-ster their weapons after stopping a shooter, iden-tify themselves, and comply with instructions from other responding officers.

RESCUE TEAMS As sufficient numbers of officers arrive at the scene, policies typically call for formation of rescue or extraction teams that locate and remove injured victims and help direct uninjured persons to safe routes out of the scene.

Some policies note that rescue teams must remain vigilant, because the changing dynamics of the situation may suddenly put a rescue team in contact with a shooter, in which case the rescue team immediately becomes a contact team. Some policies note that Rescue Teams’ tactics will vary, depending on whether victims are scattered over a wide area or are in close proximity to each other. Some policies call for rescue teams to be larger than contact teams, with at least eight officers, if possible.

In addition to locating and rescuing victims, rescue teams are charged with gathering intelligence and relaying any useful information they obtain to other police personnel, especially information about the location or movements of the shooter or shooters.


ESTABLISHING INCIDENT COMMAND Policies generally provide for designation of an incident commander who takes responsibility for establishing control of what is usually a chaotic and extremely dynamic situation. The Albany, NY policy emphasizes the importance of establishing control, saying, “A successful outcome can only be accomplished if command and control is estab-lished early….The Incident Commander must dem-onstrate clear, expedited and decisive leadership.”

Some agencies’ policies require one officer to remain outside the scene of the incident in order to serve as the incident commander, even in the first moments of the police response. A commander is needed to control the scene, organize contact and rescue teams, brief personnel who arrive later, and keep the police department communications center informed about what is happening.

Many policies provide lists of the responsibili-ties of the incident commander, beginning with performing an initial assessment of the situation, including whether sounds of gunfire can be heard and whether there may be multiple shooters. Other responsibilities include providing the radio com-munications center with information about the best ingress and egress routes and other information; establishing one or more command posts; request-ing resources; gathering intelligence from people at the scene; and establishing perimeters.

Many policies contain detailed guidance on who should serve as incident commander. Some indicate that the choice can be based on rank, expertise, or seniority. Some policies note that high-ranking officers who arrive later should not take command from a lower-ranking incident commander until they have been thoroughly briefed on the situation. Some policies state that command-level personnel en route to an active shooter event may monitor the radio to obtain information, but they must not obstruct the ongoing intervention.

PERIMETER SECURITY AND EVACUATION ASSISTANCE TEAMSSome policies provide that after Contact and Res-cue Teams have been deployed, additional respond-ing officers can be used to best advantage by giving

them specific roles. Some policies call for officers to be placed strategically in stairwells, hallway inter-sections, and other locations in order to isolate the shooter(s) and choke off escape routes.

Some policies call for establishing a Perimeter Team—officers who create inner and outer perim-eters in order to protect fleeing persons, cut off all roadways to the scene, and keep everyone except emergency responders away from the scene.

Some policies note that the role of Perimeter Team officers is not only to keep non-emergency personnel out, but also to prevent any escapes by active shooters. Some policies recommend that flee-ing civilians be patted down for weapons, in order to detect shooters who may attempt to mingle with victims in order to escape.

An Evacuation Team can take responsibility for the controlled removal of victims to hospitals or other facilities through designated routes that have been kept clear of parked vehicles or other obsta-cles. Experience has demonstrated that an orga-nized response to evacuation can make a difference in saving lives.

EMS PERSONNEL AND “ZONES OF DIMINISHING THREAT” Keeping in mind that the safety of Emergency Med-ical Services (EMS) personnel must be protected, some policies have more or less detailed provisions regarding the establishment of certain zones at an active shooter incident, ranging from “hot zones” where the active shooter may be present to “cold zones” where there is little to no threat from the shooter or shooters. In between, the policies estab-lish various categories of “warm zones,” “safety cor-ridors,” and/or “safety zones.”

The policies reflect a variety of local policies for EMS workers. In some jurisdictions, police have trained with EMS personnel and have agreements about responding to various types of incidents, but emergency medical personnel generally will not enter hot zones. By designating areas as hav-ing lower threat levels, police can bring some order to the situation and help ensure that police rescue teams and emergency medical personnel can go to victims as quickly as possible.


The goal is to achieve the best balance between protecting EMS workers and avoiding situations in which injured victims bleed to death because of unnecessary delays in allowing rescuers to respond. (See sidebar on Arlington County, VA Rescue Task Forces, page 22.)

COMMUNICATIONSBecause active shooter incidents tend to be cha-otic, effective communications are essential, start-ing with incoming 911 calls. Some policies provide checklists of questions that 911 call takers should ask to ensure that they obtain as much useful infor-mation as possible. These lists include questions about the description and location of the shooter or shooters, the types of weapons involved, the caller’s exact location, the number of people at the location, how many people are injured, whether the shooter was carrying anything or seemed to be wearing body armor, whether the shooter said anything, whether the shooter took any hostages, and so on.

Many policies also provide detailed guidance for communications among first responders and coordination of radio channels. Most policies note that all personnel must restrict use of the radio for emergency traffic only. Some policies note that it is important that members of Contact Teams and Res-cue Teams should never need to switch radio chan-nels while performing their duties.

EQUIPMENTSome policies provide guidance on the use of equip-ment in an active shooter situation—for example, stating that handguns and rifles but not shotguns are recommended for Contact Teams, or detailing the role of sharpshooters.

The response to an active shooter at any given moment may depend in part on whether various types of equipment, such as shields, are available at the scene. So breaching equipment, shields, and other equipment should be kept “on the road, not in a closet,” as one chief expressed it. A number of active shooters have used chains to lock doors, the chief noted; so breaching kits should be carried in patrol cars.

SUPPRESSIVE OR DIRECTED FIRE PERF’s review of policies found that a few depart-ments allow for “suppressive fire” or “directed fire” at a life-endangering threat, especially if the shooter has gained a position of advantage through height or barricade. Other departments’ policies prohibit suppressive fire. Most of the policies reviewed by PERF do not mention suppressive or directed fire.

According to a number of police executives and training experts whom PERF consulted, “suppres-sive fire” is a term used in the military to refer to a tactic of sending large amounts of fire more or less indiscriminately into an enemy’s general location in order to force the enemy to seek cover.

“Directed fire” is a more limited technique in which deadly force is aimed at a specific known threat in order to stop incoming fire from the threat. This may provide time for police officers to distract an active shooter, to take a new position without being fired upon, or to achieve another objective.

There was agreement among the experts PERF consulted that suppressive fire, as defined above, is a tactic of war that has no place in polic-ing. A number of views were expressed about whether police officers responding to an active shooter incident might be trained to use directed fire. There was agreement that any such training must recognize that directed fire is deadly force, and that all the legal principles and training con-cepts that police provide to officers governing deadly force remain in effect, including the U.S. Supreme Court standard that police use of force must be “objectively reasonable,” and the fact that each officer remains responsible for every round he or she fires.

PREVENTING ACTIVE SHOOTER EVENTS Some departments have additional policies designed to help prevent active shooter incidents, by ensur-ing that information about potentially troubled persons is shared within the Police Department and with other agencies.

For example, the Duke University Police Department’s policy provides specific requirements


for handling reports of “concerning behavior” that come to the attention of university personnel. “Concerning behavior” is defined to include acts of violence, threats, harassment, intimidation, stalk-ing, mental health concerns such as homicidal or suicidal thoughts, sabotage or destruction of prop-erty, and erratic or bizarre behavior that generates fear (see page 29).

AFTERMATH Many policies provide detailed instructions for police actions after the threat has been neutralized and all victims have been given assistance, includ-ing protecting and processing the crime scene, investigating the incident, and providing or man-dating psychological services for police personnel.

Depending on the number of people who are evacuated from the scene, police may be able to interview all evacuees at the scene. If there are too many evacuees to interview immediately, some policies provide that they may be excused from the scene, but only after they are identified and have provided contact information so they can be inter-viewed later.

Many policies call for a command-level critique of the incident to be submitted to the Chief of Police immediately after the incident.

And some policies call for School Resource Officers to conduct annual reviews of schools’ response plans, to ensure that they will not ham-per police response to an active shooter incident. In addition, schools’ floor plans should be reviewed annually to ensure that any changes that are made do not increase risks to students and employees.

TRAININGBecause there is no way of knowing which police department employees might be the first to arrive at the scene of an active shooter event, many poli-cies call for training of all officers in the skills that would be needed to perform critical tasks. These skills and tasks include immediate assessment of an active shooter scene, room entry techniques, building-clearing, victim rescue, and recognition of explosive devices.

In addition, advanced training should be con-ducted on a regional basis (see further discussion in next section of this report, page 16).

SUMMARY POINTS ON POLICY DEVELOPMENT

As noted above, police agencies’ policies on active shooter incidents vary on certain points, often because the best response will depend on local con-ditions. For example, police in urban or suburban areas may be able to assemble contact teams of four or more officers more quickly than is possible in rural areas.

While policies will vary on some issues, other elements of active shooter policies are more univer-sal. Following is a summary of active shooter pol-icy issues on which there appears to be a degree of consensus among departments that have developed such policies.

The need for an active shooter policy: Active shooter incidents are fundamentally different

from hostage situations and other critical inci-dents, because of the extreme pressure on police to respond as quickly as possible to stop the kill-ing and wounding of victims. In other types of sce-narios, such as incidents involving persons with a mental illness who are behaving erratically or in a threatening manner but are not actively harming anyone, police leaders often urge officers to “slow the situation down,” ratcheting down the pressure in order to provide time for a response by officers and others who have specialized training in mental health issues.

Unlike policies for those situations, active shooter polices are built around the reality that even a one-minute delay in responding may result in multiple additional fatalities.


Solo response vs. contact teams: While all active shooter policies emphasize the importance of a fast response, policies also recognize that it is safer for officers to assemble a “contact team,” typically with four officers, who respond together to find and neutralize the shooter(s), rather than allowing offi-cers to respond on their own. Many policies make a compromise by calling for the creation of contact teams, but allowing flexibility to use fewer officers if it appears that a full contact team cannot be assem-bled quickly.

In some situations, because of the gravity of the threat and the amount of time needed for additional officers to arrive, immediate action is needed by the officer or officers who arrive first. Clearly there is greater risk if only one or two officers respond, and this should be undertaken only in the most extreme circumstances of life and death. We live in chal-lenging times that require police officers to make split-second decisions that often save lives, but regretfully sometimes cost officers their lives.

Regardless of how many officers are present to respond, some experts recommend that officers be trained to take a few seconds to assess the situation and their tactical resources in order to decide on the best approach, rather than simply charging into the scene.

Regardless of the size of the contact team, offi-cers should focus on stopping the shooter as their priority, rather than assisting victims whom they may encounter as they search for the shooter. The priorities are: (1) stop the shooter; (2) assist the wounded; and (3) evacuate people from the scene.

Experts on police training note that some officers seem to have a mistaken belief that active shooters usually commit suicide before they can be confronted by police. In fact, as noted in the pre-vious chapter of this report, only about 40 percent of active shooters commit suicide. In nearly half of the incidents, the shooter is shot or subdued by the police or by civilians at the scene. Thus, policies should recognize the danger and note that there are situations when officers must be prepared to risk their own lives to prevent further violence.

Incident command: Like other types of critical incidents, active shooter events often involve a rapid

response by many different law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical service agencies. Strong policies and training can help to ensure that despite the rapidly changing dynamics, an active shooter situation does not result in chaos. Establishing an incident commander and having a Unified Com-mand structure with fire and rescue services are critically important. Rules should be established, and ideally should be agreed to on a regional basis, regarding who will take command, any changes in incident command as the event continues, and the roles and duties of the incident commander.

Formation of secondary teams: As additional officers arrive and after one or more contact teams have been deployed, the incident commander should form additional teams for various purposes, including the following:

• Rescue or Extraction teams, which remove injured victims and direct uninjured persons to safe routes away from the scene.

• Evacuation Assistance teams, which help manage the transportation of victims to hospitals through cleared routes.

• Perimeter Security teams, which create perime-ters to keep everyone except emergency respond-ers away from the scene, protect fleeing persons, and prevent an active shooter from escaping. It is important to maintain clear lanes for ingress and egress.

Emergency medical response: Law enforce-ment agencies should work with local emergency medical service agencies and fire departments to establish a clear understanding of how they will work together in an active shooter incident. EMS departments often have policies against their employees entering “hot zones” that have not been secured by police. A number of approaches are available to provide a nuanced approach that allows police rescue teams and EMS workers to designate certain areas of the scene as “warm zones” or “safety corridors.” Policies should be designed to balance the need to protect EMS workers’ safety while also avoiding unnecessary delays in bringing emergency medical care to injured victims. (See page 22.)


Advanced training conducted in schools, shop-ping malls, large industrial centers, churches, hos-pitals, and other locations is recommended. Such training can teach officers to think about the secu-rity assets that may be available in various locations. For example, at a shopping mall, closing of secu-rity gates at individual stores can help to deny the shooter access to many potential victims, and some security devices may be operated remotely. Issues such as radio interoperability should be tested in training that simulates the stressful environment of an active shooting incident, because officers may not comprehend dispatchers telling them to switch their radios to certain channels.

Because active shooter situations usually involve multi-agency response, police agencies should strive for consistent policies, strategies, tac-tics, terms, prohibitions, training, coordination, and radio channels/communications systems on a regional basis.

Other elements of a policy: Other aspects of an active shooter policy include coordination of radio communications and channels, contact and res-cue team tactics, equipment, preserving the crime scene, briefing the news media, and providing post-incident psychological counseling to officers.

Intelligence-gathering: Investigation and intelligence-gathering are an important component of responding to an active shooting incident. Police should use online sources of information as well as any witnesses at the scene who may be available to determine the shooter’s identity, where he lives, prior arrests or criminal record, any social media postings he may have made, whether he legally owns weapons, his driver’s license information and photograph to disseminate, etc. Security cameras at the location of the active shooting may produce useful intelligence.

Training: All officers who could be called upon to respond to an active shooter incident should receive training in critical tasks, such as assessment of an active shooter scene, room entry techniques, recognition of explosive devices, and the roles of contact teams, evacuation and perimeter teams.

In addition, officers should receive training in basic emergency medical care techniques that can save lives in an active shooter event, especially with regard to controlling bleeding, maintaining airways, and immobilizing fractured limbs.

Experienced police chiefs and other experts strongly recommend that police agencies also con-duct advanced training for active shooter incidents that includes multi-agency trainings, table-top exer-cises, and realistic training in the use of firearms in an active shooter incident.

16 — The Police Response to Active Shooter Incidents, and Changes in Officer Training

The Police Response to Active Shooter Incidents,

And Changes in Officer Training

This chapter presents comments that were made by some of the experts at PERF’s Active Shooter conference in Washington, D.C.

Arvada, CO Sgt. A.J. DeAndrea:

No Question, We Now Train To Stop the Threat ASAPChuck Wexler: Sergeant, you were a team leader at Columbine. Can you set the stage for us? Look-ing back at it now, what were the major lessons that police took away from the Columbine experience?

Sergeant DeAndrea: I think first and foremost that prior to Columbine, we believed that this kind of situation was a job for SWAT. Patrol would con-tain the situation, control the scene, and contact the SWAT team.

We realized that that’s not the answer. Active shooters are now seen as a patrol dilemma. We needed to get resources into that building imme-diately to stop the threat. That is the biggest lesson from Columbine, and since then we’ve seen our tac-tics evolve in ways that are designed to produce a faster response.

Wexler: In some ways, there was an unfair reac-tion to how the police handled the Columbine inci-dent, wasn’t there? People said the police were too slow to take charge.

Sergeant DeAndrea: Yes, it was unfair, because at Columbine, the deputies did exactly what they had been trained to do when a call like that came out: They set the perimeter. And we thought there were six perpetrators, which of course slowed tac-tics down.

Today, we are training our officers to be much more aggressive, and to get into the venue and stop the threat. We’re teaching that in the Police Acad-emy and then all the way through officers’ careers professionally.

SWAT is a necessity as well, to have the equip-ment and the skill level and confidence that they have been trained to provide.

We all work hand in hand, but there’s no ques-tion that we are trying to tell those first respond-ers and supervisors to be much more aggressive in responding to the threat as quickly as possible.

Arvada, CO Sgt. A.J. DeAndrea

The Police Response to Active Shooter Incidents, and Changes in Officer Training — 17

Arvada, CO Police Chief Don Wick:

Changing Our Tactics Is a Continual ProcessI think that Columbine was the event that focused national attention on the fact that we have a lot of school shootings. We know that our tactics evolved from that. I think that especially for those of us in Colorado, it was a key learning point, where we realized we can’t do it the old way anymore.

And this is a continuing process. We have to constantly evolve our tactics. We have to under-stand what the suspects are doing, how they are changing how they operate, and we have to be a step ahead and get better.

John Cohen, Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Intelligence & Analysis And Counterterrorism Coordinator, DHS:

It’s Important for Officers From Different Agencies To Receive Similar TrainingOver the past three or four years, we have been working very closely with the FBI and others to look at past shooting incidents and search for precedent indicators, so we can provide additional training support to prevent these shootings.

We also work on increasing security at loca-tions that could be targets and identifying gaps in security. Quite a bit of training has been developed

for the people who work in movie theaters, shop-ping malls, schools, houses of worship, and other locations where large numbers of people gather. We focus on training those people so that they know what to expect and what to do if an event like this begins to occur at their place of work.

We also work on issues of psychological recov-ery, not only for victims and family members, but for first responders as well.

One thing we have learned is the importance of consistency in training. In Newtown, for exam-ple, there has been a lot of discussion of the benefit that was derived from the fact that across the state of Connecticut, police officers receive consistent training in how to deal with these situations. So if officers travel outside their jurisdiction and work with colleagues from other departments, everybody has at least the same baseline level of training. In other states, that’s not the case. In some states, offi-cers are receiving different types of training, with different philosophical approaches to dealing with these situations.

We’ve also been re-evaluating the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and other response protocols, and the major takeaway from all these events is: Train, train, train. Don’t just train by yourself. Train with your fire department. Train with EMS. Train with everyone who responds to these events, so that we are all on the same page when an event like this occurs.

far left: Arvada, CO Police Chief Don Wick

left: Principal Deputy Under Secretary John Cohen, DHS

continued on page 20


On Saturday morning, January 25, 2014, Howard County, MD Police Chief William J. McMahon was traveling in his car when he began to hear radio transmissions indicating that an active shooter incident was occurring in his jurisdiction, at a large shopping mall in Columbia, a suburb outside of Baltimore.

Chief McMahon made a quick U-turn and headed toward the mall, which was about 10 minutes away. Other Howard County officers had arrived two minutes after the initial 911 call. The responding officers found that a 19-year-old man had fatally shot two employees of an athletic clothing store and had wounded a customer across the hall, before fatally shooting himself.

Chief McMahon and the Howard County Police Department received high marks for their handling of the incident, particularly with regard to how efficiently they disseminated information to the public and the news media as the event was unfolding and in the hours and days afterward.

It helped that all Howard County officers had received active shooter training, and that SWAT officers who arrived quickly had received active shooter training at the mall where the shootings occurred, Chief McMahon told PERF. McMahon and his Deputy Chiefs, Merritt Bender, Gary Gardner, and Lee Lachman, also had participated in PERF’s 2013 Summit on Active Shooters.

In an interview, PERF asked McMahon if there were any lessons he learned during the Columbia Mall incident that have not received enough attention, and he said that police chiefs need to think about managing the response in the minutes after a call goes out. In urban and suburban areas with many police agencies nearby, it is likely that many officers will “self-dispatch” to an active shooter incident, which can complicate the situation, he said.

“As I was driving to the scene, my phone was blowing up with texts and calls from people telling me about the personnel and equipment they were

January 2014 Shooting in Maryland Shopping Mall Tested Capabilities of Howard County Police

sending me, and I was fortunate that members of my own SWAT team were in the area and responding, and our Special Operations captain arrived quickly,” McMahon said. “We had officers on the scene within two minutes. At first, we didn’t know the extent of what we were dealing with, so you’re always grateful for the assistance. I was glad that I had plenty of officers. So for example I could just say, ‘Post someone at every entrance to the mall; we don’t want any more traffic coming into the mall,’ and there were officers to take care of it.”

“But it wasn’t too long before we were fairly certain that we had a double murder and suicide, and we did not have any other shooters still roaming the mall,” McMahon said. “My SOD captain and I were working off the hood of my car, and I turned around and saw these waves of people in uniform coming onto the scene. So I grabbed a sergeant and said, ‘You need to get a handle on all

of these people for me.’ In a situation like that, you have people from various ranks and a lot of different departments self-dispatching, so you need someone who is strong enough but also diplomatic enough to take charge of them.”

“I’m going to discuss this issue with the Maryland chiefs’ association, because I think it’s something we need to address,” McMahon continued. “A lot of people will respond, so you need to manage them. It would be good to have an understanding that officers who self-dispatch to the scene will go to a staging area and wait to be assigned a role, rather than having people just do what they think needs to be done. If you have


people self-dispatching who are not in uniform, you increase the risk of blue-on-blue shootings, and you end up with more people calling the police to report that they saw someone with a gun, which can add to the confusion.”

USING TWITTER TO SHARE INFORMATION

The Howard County Police Department extensively used social media, especially Twitter, to share information with the public during and after the shooting incident. Public Affairs Director Sherry Llewellyn was on the scene and posted approximately 75 tweets on the day of the shooting. Following are a few of those tweets:

• TherehasbeenaconfirmedshootingattheColumbiamall.

• ThreepeopleconfirmeddeadatColumbiaMall.

• Peopleinsidemallarebeingaskedtostayinplaceuntilpolicecancleareachareasafely.

• Onedeceasedsubjectlocatedneargunandammunition.IDunknown.

Furthermore, the Police Department used Twitter to communicate with people who were taking cover inside the mall, as police established that the shooter was a lone shooter and the threat was over, directing the customers to stay in place and wait for officers to safely escort them from the mall, Chief McMahon said.

In the days that followed, Ms. Llewellyn posted additional information as it became available, including news about the identity of the shooter and a journal that was found at his home, information about where the shooter purchased the shotgun that he used, a photo of the shooter with a request for information from anyone who knew him or saw him at the mall, information about the victims and memorial events, referrals for counseling services, and other information.

The Police Department also posted a number of photographs related to the incident, including a photo of the store after it was boarded up, with messages of thanks to first responders.

Chief McMahon and Ms. Llewellyn said that Twitter was particularly fast and effective in correcting erroneous information that other people were posting on social media, such as false reports suggesting that the shooter knew one of the victims. Twitter also was an effective way of disseminating information to the news media. Llewellyn was busy at the scene of the shooting, so she had another public information officer monitoring social media feeds and forwarding Llewellyn questions that were being posed or false reports that needed to be refuted.

“We didn’t abandon traditional media,” McMahon said. “We held two press conferences the day of the shooting and two more the following day, and we issued traditional press releases. But Twitter and Facebook helped us get information out immediately rather than responding individually to the countless inquiries we were getting.”

At the same time, McMahon cautioned that police must take care to ensure that all the information they tweet is correct. People may think of social media as being less serious than traditional media, but stories in the Washington Post and other major news media cited the Howard County Police Department’s tweets as authoritative sources. “You have a well of credibility, but one mistake and you can lose that,” McMahon said.

• Norecentreportsofanyadditionalshotsheard.

• Noindicationofadditionalshotsfired.Scenebelievedtobesecure.

• Onesubjectdeadissuspectedshooter.Noinformationaboutothervictimsyet.

• MEDIABRIEFING1:15p.m.nearSearsatColumbiaMall.

• TwovictimswithminorinjuriesthatwereNOTdirectlyrelatedtotheshootingweretransportedtoHowardCountyGeneralHospital.Nootherinjuriesreported.


Aurora, CO Chief Dan Oates:

Columbine Was a Searing Event For Police Agencies in ColoradoChuck Wexler: Dan, you served 21 years in the NYPD, then as chief in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in 2005 you became chief in Aurora, Colorado, where the Columbine massacre was felt most deeply. And then in 2012 Aurora experienced the horrific movie theater shooting. I understand that you cannot dis-cuss the Aurora movie theater shooting, because you have a suspect on trial for it. But can you give us a few words on your general perspective on this issue?

Chief Oates: As an outsider to the Colorado law enforcement community who has only been there since 2005, I can tell you that Colorado law enforcement has been on top of its game since Columbine. It was a searing event for the police in Colorado. There was this sea change in terms of shifting away from the old strategy of “contain and negotiate.” I think everyone has a focus on the new paradigm and the new way of responding, includ-ing my organization. We have really focused in the last couple of years on training for aggressive entry

to attack the threat. That is a common theme. Colo-rado was fundamentally changed by Columbine in a very powerful way.

Alexander Eastman, M.D., Lieutenant and Deputy Medical Director, Dallas, TX Police Department:

All Officers Should Receive Simple Training In How to Stop Victims’ BleedingOne of the things I’ve been hearing about is train-ing officers in some sort of emergency medical response. We have to remember that 33 percent of officers who go in solo are wounded. And 100 percent of these incidents have wounded civilians. So we must think about ways in which police offi-cers can save their own lives as well as the lives of civilians.

I think we’ve almost gone too far with it; it has become too complicated. You don’t need a whole day of medical training for your officers. In Dal-las, in addition to our own department, we’re help-ing the University of Texas System Police with its train-the-trainer program, and it only takes about one hour of initial training to make officers as profi-cient as anyone at doing a very simple task: stopping bleeding. It’s not medicine; it’s not turning officers into EMTs; it’s not making them paramedics; it’s not

Aurora, CO Chief Dan Oates

Dr. Alexander Eastman, Dallas Police Department

continued from page 17


making them proficient in tactical medicine. It is just stopping hemorrhage, and it is simple training with simple equipment.

So I ask you, would you spend an hour a year and $30 per officer for the chance that one of them would go home tomorrow from one of these active shooter events? I think everyone in this room would answer yes to that question.

George Mason University Police Chief Drew Tracy:

The Thinking Is Changing About Emergency Medical Personnel Going into “Warm Turf ” Since Columbine, the mindset has changed. You have to train and equip the first responders. And you have to work and coordinate and plan with the Emergency Medical Services people.

Most of the EMS people are understandably concerned about going into crime scene areas known as “warm turf.” They aren’t police officers; they are not armed to protect themselves. So they want to stay in the cold turf. But you’re not going to get victims out quickly enough if you wait.

So, one thing we do is train with responding EMS personnel at George Mason University to go into the warm zone with our law enforcement people,

basically right behind the immediate action team. So once the immediate action team ends or neutral-izes the threat, they’re there right away. Extraction teams can get in right away. In 2009, about 80 per-cent of the fire departments in this country would not go into the warm zone. Now, the mindset is changing, to get into the warm zone and get the casualties out.

COPS Office Director Bernard Melekian:

Incident Command System Is Consistent with Active Shooter ResponseChuck Wexler: Barney, how does the police response to active shooters fit with the Incident Command System (ICS) that currently exists? ICS is a standardized system for coordinating the emer-gency response to a variety of incidents, when there are many different jurisdictions that are responding. But who manages active shooter events? You may have one patrol officer arriving and taking action, and he doesn’t even have a supervisor at the scene.

Bernard Melekian: I think you have to look at it in terms of the evolution of command. When that first officer gets there, he may evaluate the problem

George Mason University Police Chief Drew Tracy

COPS Office Director Bernard Melekian

continued on page 26


Like many public safety agencies, the Arlington County Police and Fire Departments began studying active shooter events a number of years ago. In August 2007, our departments conducted a joint exercise using a local university campus as the setting.

Our exercise was realistic, and it highlighted numerous deficiencies. The main weakness was the staging of Fire/EMS assets for more than an hour while waiting for the “all clear” from police. It was clear that while law enforcement had made significant changes to their tactics in the wake of Columbine, Fire/EMS had not similarly adapted.

Immediately after the exercise, we resolved to come up with a better way. That way is called Rescue Task Force (RTF), and the main objective is to get medical care to victims within minutes of being wounded.

POLICE AND FIRE/EMS RESPOND TOGETHER TO SAVE LIVES IN ACTIVE SHOOTER ‘WARM ZONES’

RTF consists of the first arriving Fire/EMS personnel teamed with two patrol officers, who follow quickly into “warm” zones in areas that are cleared but not secured by police. Patrol officers enter a structure or area first, as contact teams, to engage the shooter. As soon as those officers assess an area as clear of the shooter, they communicate with command. The Rescue Task Force then deploys to the same area to provide care for victims, while the contact teams continue their search for the shooter(s).

The police officers on a Rescue Task Force provide security for the detail, and their job is to constantly evaluate the situation for threats. They do not provide medical care for victims.

It is important to emphasize that the EMS personnel who are part of the RTF are not tactical medics. They are regular firefighter/EMTs who are trained in Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC). TECC is the civilian adaptation of Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC). TCCC was first introduced to the military in the mid-1990s, and has drastically

Police and Fire Departments in Arlington County, VA Create Rescue Task Forces to Speed Medical Care

By Chief M. Douglas Scott, Arlington County, VA Police DepartmentChief Jim Schwartz, Arlington County, VA Fire Department

reduced preventable battlefield deaths due to trauma in Iraq and Afghanistan. TCCC uses simple measures, including tourniquets and occlusive dressings that stop critical blood loss that can lead to death in minutes.

As valuable as these protocols are, TCCC was developed and applied for a specific demographic: The military only takes healthy, physically fit people to war. The profiles of people in our communities who are potential victims of an active shooter span a range of medical circumstances, including geriatrics, pediatrics, pregnant women, and persons with mental or physical handicaps. For our operating environment, TECC is a better and more realistic fit.

As a deployed RTF encounters live victims, the EMS personnel apply appropriate TECC measures and then assesses the situation to determine if the victim should be moved immediately to a casualty collection point outside, or if that should be done by a second RTF, in which case the first RTF moves to another victim. These decisions are the result of a constant “size-up” of the situation and risk assessment being made by everyone on the scene, with information being shared through unified command.

In Arlington, every police officer is trained in TECC. Police officers are also equipped with a

left: Arlington County, VA Police Chief M. Douglas Scottright: Arlington County, VA Fire Chief Jim Schwartz


“blowout kit” that includes a tourniquet, wound seal and combat compression bandage. This was done primarily in recognition that police officers themselves may be the victim of a gunshot wound, and either they or their buddy may need immediate care.

Moreover, when responders are faced with numerous victims from an active shooter or other event involving trauma, there cannot be too many personnel with TECC skills and equipment. On a recent incident where police were dispatched to a gang fight, officers recognized the life-threatening knife wounds that several of the participants suffered. Using their TECC training and equipment, the officers applied tourniquets and wound seals in advance of the arrival of EMS.

All fire/EMS personnel are also trained in TECC, and each response vehicle is equipped with kits that include the tourniquets and compression bandages. When the Rescue Task Force is deployed, members carry a larger version of the kits that are made for use in battlefield-like conditions, and carry enough equipment for multiple patients.

THREE ELEMENTS OF RESPONSE TO ACTIVE SHOOTER

Numerous federal agencies, professional associations, and labor groups have developed guidance for response to active shooter events. Such guidelines are useful when based on thoughtful analysis of available evidence. From our perspective, a successful response to an active shooter incident must involve three essential elements:

• The first element is the prime objective of getting medical care to victims within minutes. Whether this entails Rescue Task Forces or another approach based on local capabilities is a decision to be made jointly by all the public safety agencies that may be involved in such a response. The foundation of this objective is to train and equip every public safety responder in the Tactical Emergency Casualty Care.

• The second element of a successful response to an active shooter incident is a commitment by agency heads that the response be integrated.

Standard operating procedures should be developed jointly and exercised frequently. There must be a strong message from command officers that training and response to active shooter events will utilize unified incident command as described in the National Incident Management System (NIMS).

• Lastly, agencies must include in their program a commitment to continuing joint training and exercises. Incidents involving an active shooter are not routine events, so there is a possibility of “skill fade” unless there is a periodic refresh of local practices. In Arlington we achieve this by staging small exercises that involve one firehouse and a couple of patrol officers who are taken off the street for as little as 30 minutes to walk through the procedures. Senior-level officers from our departments oversee the training to demonstrate command commitment.

Additionally, periodic review of practices and procedures enables changes to reflect the ever-evolving nature of these incidents. Each shooter seems to “learn” from the last active shooter incident, which elevates the level of difficulty for responders.

There is little doubt that violent incidents that involve innocent victims will continue to plague our communities. And unlike many of the investments in terrorism preparedness that have been made in densely populated urban jurisdictions over the last decade, these events happen anywhere. We must be ready.


On September 16, 2013, 15 people were shot, 12 fatally, in a mass shooting at the Naval Sea Systems Command at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.

Chief Cathy Lanier of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in Washington provided the following summary of the issues and challenges the MPD faced in responding to this incident:

Shooting at the Washington Navy YardD.C. Metropolitan Police Department:Identified Issues and Challenges

Metropolitan Police DepartmentWashington, D.C.

• Difficult to initially determine the exact location of Building 197.

Scene Management

• Size of scene; both the size of the base and the enormity and complexity of Building 197.

Witness Management and Investigative Response

• Thousands of potential witnesses; and

• Coordination with many other agencies with direct involvement in the response, as well as those agencies in supporting roles or impacted by incident.

Possibility of Multiple Shooters

• While the first description of the shooter was very accurate (provided by first 911 caller who witnessed shooting), several witnesses, callers, and the limited video from the scene provided conflicting or additional information that suggested the possibility of additional suspects.

Incident Command

• Although Incident Command was established, there are a number of ways it could have been more clearly developed (after the crisis response/search for shooter).

• While most of the critical roles were established early in the response, there were various branches

Building Structure and Environment

• Large, secure building housing naval engineering operations;

• Several Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) and classified operations;

• Complex, “maze-like” layout with thousands of cubicles and office areas, and extremely narrow hallways and pathways;

• Many areas of concealment (for shooter), few areas of adequate cover (for officers);

• Steel structure (affected the radios of some officers from other agencies) with two, large open atriums (affected ability to determine the location of gunshots); and

• Alarm was pulled by security and was sounding through the duration of the search for the shooter.

Emergency Calls

• Getting information provided by callers from the 911 call center to the units in the field;

• Some operators stuck to a standard script, which frustrated callers; and

• 911 calls made from landlines within the Navy Yard complex were routed to their internal communications center and not the city’s 911 call center.

Initial Identification of Location and Access to Base

• Some entrance gates to the base were closed and locked per longstanding base lockdown protocols; and


and functions that were not clearly or effectively established, and not all responding agencies reported to Incident Command.

Unified Command

• Too many command buses which diluted agency representation.

• Insufficient representation of all key agencies in Unified Command.

Communications

• Some officers had a difficult time transmitting vital information over radio ch

The Police Response to Active Shooter Incidents...2014, and Chief Cathy Lanier of Washington,...

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